Roo

Just had the most amazing view of it going over: really, really bright and absolutely unmistakable. Could even see the panels as it slipped down to the east. There's another pass in an hour or so and then two more tomorrow, so if you didn't catch it, well worth a look then.

For anyone in the South of England, the docked shuttle and ISS are due to go directly overhead at around 6ish tonight. It's predicted to be mag -3.6 so should be a pretty sight. Well worth a look, especially with even just a pair of binoculars/small telescope. You can add your location here to find precise times and tracks. http://www.heavens-above.com/selecttown.asp?CountryID=UK Happy sky watching...

Trouble is GW, it is a costly business publishing material to a high standard [i know: our society publishes a peer-reviewed, journal of record]. It would be great to publish for free, but you cannot cover the costs you need that way. BUT, as I've said before, email one of the authors and they will almost always give you a free PDF off-print or link to somewhere where their work is published in precis or for free.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/08/merchants-of-doubt-oreskes-conway This book is certainly worth a read.

I'm a bit out of date with my links to be able to verify this, but it looks as if we might be in for a little bit of aurora action in the next few days, if we're lucky. http://www.bbc.co.uk...onment-10880852 EDIT: Oops...posted this in the wrong thread...please remove mods.

Oh many's the hour I spent doing this (with honey in water though). One of those real childhood things.....

Don't drive and only use car rarely at weekends, have insulated house and double glazed windows, live in a terrace which uses less anyway, collect rainwater for watering, have eco-garden (i.e. not paved or decked and full of natives and areas for wildlife), vegetarian (so not growing food twice to produce meat), use eco bulbs, don't use carrier bags, have box veg delivery so don't have much food packaging, recycle (where it's not being crated to china!), try not to fly, reuse, mend broken things, not buy too much that I don't need, etc, etc..... My mum was a member of the green party way back when it was the Ecology Party so I've been brought up with all this and by now some...cough...30 years on it's just what I do....it's become second nature and not at all a chore.

Think you might be right....isn't it just Eyja from a different angle?

Mmmmm. Also, OK even if you accept that one flight didn't pick up anything, what about repeated backwards and forwards over a number of days: because you can bet they won't be going through the engine checks so carefully as they are now.... This really smacks of shareholders over safety....

KLM saying that european air space is safe apart from the area between Iceland and Russia. These people are just plain irresponsible.....

Mondy you can save all the bogey you want, but I'll not give you kudos.... Nice pics though!

Now isn't that interesting: KLM and Air France are one and the same company! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France-KLM

Too true. It is a luxury, but we seems to have forgotten that. Also, yes it will get trickier if you like ready made fruit salad, kenyan roses or need a specialist computer chip but, to be honest, we've had 4 days of this and the world hasn't ended. Indeed, those of us in areas close to airports are basking in the silence..... I do hope, when things start up again, people might consider what cost there is to non-stop flying?

Do you think they could be persuaded to leave Dan Snow there?

I agree. I actually really admire NATS standing up to this in the name of safety. It really must be tough for them and I can imagine there must be a fair few politicians/CEOs leaning on them heavily.

Yes they said on the news this morning that KLM have taken a test flight up. Seems to me to be a really reckless thing to do: NATS have to follow protocol....can you imagine if a plane went up and then crashed because of the ash? Caught between a rock and hard place, I think....

Yep....I tried the same with my four year old: she is fascinated by the whole thing. Luckily they had some great graphics on the news which helped her get the idea (who'd have thunk dumbing down could be so useful!!!). Now she keeps looking on the car for signs of ash.....

Yes, odd isn't it? I wouldn't have said we live in the flight path of Luton, but clearly we must get a lot of background noise as it seems much, much quieter now.

There was a vulcanologist on BBC news earlier who was suggesting it was difficult to tell. He seemed to be saying that a few days was likely, but the nature of this particular volcano, based on previous eruptions, meant that we could see disruption from time to time potentially for a few years to come.

BBC reporting no non-emergency flights before 6am tomorrow at earliest....

Isn't it to do with contrail cloud cover though? And I thought that the eruption cloud isn't yet with us, so they'll be getting some data before that? I dunno..... Bet the residents around Heathrow will be out in their gardens this afternoon making the most of the peace and quiet!!!

Mmmmm I remember flicking small bits of sooty nasty off my, then baby's, pram blanket! Nice! My mum and dad in scotland are saying that local news is suggesting that flights could be cancelled for several days. One of those interesting times where you realise what we actually 'need', what is luxury, and how it can all be overturned by nature! I bet there's a lot of scientists frantically gathering data in the absence of plane traffic!

No that's just called 'Scottish Weather' Mr M. Interesting isn't it? As far as I can make out it's very high (plane crusing altitude) and not visible, but could cause usn a very good sunset tonight. Is there any chance any of this could give us a dusting?

That may apply for the richer, Western, world who will always have more buying power to consume whatever is still there. However globally, if supplies start to get limited, the poorer nations will be the first to suffer. Our hugely resource intensive global food production system means that the slightest climate change will cause problems. You can see it happening already: poorer countries unable to feed their own people due to drought/famine, etc and yet those same countries managing to export food to the West. And then on top of this, these same countries have to deal with the creeping spread of diseases like malaria and typhoid, increased child mortality, etc, etc, which will only get worse with AGW... If we marshalled our resources equally, then I'd agree with you: there should be enough for all, but under the current system, if AGW is happening, our global ability to adapt fast enough just isn't there. In the West, we don't care enough to use our technology on those who need it most (.....or do they even need it? some would argue that all they need is for us to stop manipulating the systems that have served them well until the West got into the bargain...) Anyway, this is all getting of the climate change path so I'm off to get my breaskfast!

But isn't the problem that humans have a far more precarious relationship with natural resources than they have before? Had there only been a few of us, more naturally adapted to our environments and living a mostly nomadic/shifting existence which would allow us to move with the resources then I am sure we could ride this out. As it is, there's a huge number of us living cheek by jowl, in areas where we naturally shouldn't, with scarse resources and no idea how to live from the earth. In that scenario, even a small change could be catastrophic and, as such, bears no comparison to the past.